Of Course Elon Musk Is Pushing The Cybertruck Back Again, What Did You Expect?

"The start of production is always very slow."

Cyberfricked

Like death and taxes, the slippage of an Elon Musk timeline is an inevitability you can plan your life around. Now, it's happened once again as the multi-hyphenate CEO announced that Tesla's long-awaited Cybertruck wouldn't begin shipping out regularly until 2024.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, Musk's again-delayed promise came during a quarterly Tesla earnings call and did, to be fair, include the caveat that some beta models of the cubist vehicle could be unveiled as early as next month.

"The start of production is always very slow," he told investors on the call, "so I wouldn't put too much stock in start of production. It's kind of when does volume production actually happen, and that's next year."

Per Musk's current estimation, manufacturing of the Cybertruck, which was initially announced in 2019, is slated to begin "sometime this summer," which is just vague enough for him to wriggle out of it if need be.

Timing Matters

Just over a year ago, a whistleblower revealed to Reuters that the Cybertruck's production was being pushed back until at least "early 2023," and that "at least" seems to be the operative qualifier now.

As with other Muskian bargains, the Cybertruck has seen repeated delays since it was first teased back in the "before" times. At first, COVID-19 was a reasonable culprit for the first production setbacks when announced in 2021, but in subsequent years (and with subsequent Musk ventures, such as, you know, buying Twitter), that excuse didn't float anymore.

Janked Up

Not only has Cybertruck's production timeline slipped repeatedly, but what we have seen of it has been, shall we say, unimpressive. Last April, the prototype Musk took onto a stage to show off was near-universally dunked upon for looking like crap, and a few months later, a different version had a bunch of random wires ripped out of it.

To add insult to impatience, Musk also revealed that the price tag, which was originally projected to be a suspiciously-reasonable $40,000, was going to end up costing more than that — and he actually had the audacity to blame that rising figure on inflation, given the length of time between announcement and production.

As with everything else that comes out of the man's mouth and thumbs, we have no choice but to take this latest Cybertruck projection with enough salt to pickle a herring — but hey, at least we're not on that insane waiting list.

More on Elon Musk shenanigans: Elon Musk Ditched Tesla Stock Right Before Bad News Dropped